Eyewitnesses told Reuters that violence broke out between Muslims and Hindus during the procession in Jahangirpuri, a suburb of New Delhi. Police said they were continuing to investigate. “We are still assessing how many people were injured … some police officers have also been injured,” said Dipendra Pathak, a Jahangirpuri police official wearing riot gear. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Violence erupted during a march to celebrate the Hanuman Jayanti Hindu festival, police said without elaborating. Earlier on Saturday, protesters in New Delhi chanted slogans against the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying Muslims had been targeted by authorities since the Hindu-Muslim clashes in parts of three Hindu-ruled Hindu states. read more Clashes last Sunday during a religious festival prompted police to impose a curfew in a city and ban gatherings of more than four people in parts of the state. Local authorities destroyed the homes and shops of suspected Muslim rioters in the central state of Madhya Pradesh after violence erupted during the Ram Navami Hindu festival, according to a police official who did not want to be named. In the state of Monti, Gujarat, authorities destroyed makeshift shops belonging to those who said they were involved in the riots in which a man was killed, said an official in the Anad district of Gujarat, where clashes broke out. Police and local authorities told Reuters after the clashes that they were biased and acting within the law. Opposition politicians have accused Monti’s right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of sparking tensions between Hindus, a majority, and Muslims in the ruling states. The leaders of 13 opposition parties issued a joint statement calling for peace and harmony even after the religious clashes. “We are deeply saddened by the deliberate use of food, clothing, festivals and language by sections of the ruling elite to polarize our society,” the leaders said. Police in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, on Friday arrested nine people from a hard-line Hindu group suspected of setting fire to the house of a Muslim man who married a Hindu woman. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Additional references by Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow and Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad By Shilpa Jamkhandikar Edited by Rupam Jain and Ros Russell Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
